By Aaron Schweitzer
What’s the worst timeline? Was it Detective Pikachu? No, that was just disappointing. Was it Movie 43? No, that was just painstaking. Was it Transformers 4? No, that was just awful and turned into silly… These are the thoughts that were racing through my head while sitting in the theater for Terminator: Dark Fate. But before we get there, let’s back up a bit.
I didn’t “grow up” with the Terminator franchise, but I got into the franchise in middle school. When I did, I was captivated by these movies. The original movie is an absolute classic and deserves to be praised as such. T2 is in the discussion for the best action movie of all time and if you question that, then we can’t be friends. Here’s where things get dicey for fans. I probably like T3 more than you. It’s not perfect and it a mediocre action movie for the most part, but the ending is spectacular! I probably like Salvation more than you too. It’s not amazing, but I think it plays with some interesting concepts and I honestly wish we got more sequels to that movie with a better production team. As for Genysis, I saw it and didn’t hate it but won’t watch it again and I’ll be fine with that. Now comes Dark Fate, a movie that ignores all but T1 and T2 and starts a new timeline and I just kept having the question: Why?
I’m the first person to defend sequels (especially with year gaps) because I think that given some time, you can really take franchises in a new direction, but with Dark Fate, there was absolutely none of that! The terminator seems basically like a repeat of the one from T3, the plot is as basic as it gets and especially for a Sci-Fi movie, that should be digging your own grave. Aside from that, Schwarzenegger seems to be just phoning it in, Linda Hamilton didn’t seem to care, Mackenzie Davis seemed very one-note, nothing about the score stands out, this movie tries and fails to have heart, the title is stupid and doesn’t fit at all, it unnecessarily goes for humor and fails despite having the director from Deadpool, the special effects are far from spectacular, and there is not one action sequence I actually liked. I wrote those initial thoughts at the top because I was genuinely bored with this movie.
There was not one thing, action or comedy, that put anything close to resembling a smile on my face.
This movie was the definition of “I’ve seen it done better elsewhere” but the worst part about that statement for Dark Fate is that it can be concluded by saying “I’ve seen it done better elsewhere WITHIN THE SAME FRANCHISE that this movie for no reason decided to retcon!” Gosh, I hate this movie the more I ponder it!
Let’s switch over to a few positives. Gabriel Luna does his best with this role, the action is not chop-edited to hell, and while there are some, this movie does not rely on calling back to the original two with lines and iconic items like Genysis did. Sure, there are some callbacks and they do seem in your face, I don’t feel the movie is overwhelmed with them. But that’s really all I have to say about the positives.
If you’re going to retcon part of a franchise, then you have to make sure that what you do has a purpose. Halloween did a great job of this last year because it got rid of all the stupid mythos after the original, but there is no reason they couldn’t have just picked up after T3 or even Salvation. I would have really preferred that movie over this one and I think I’m just done with this franchise. I was not thrilled for this movie, but I was interested enough to go see it, I just didn’t think this movie would be the one to finally make me not interested in any more Terminator movies regardless of Cameron’s involvement. So there, I bit the bullet and saw this movie so you don’t have to.